Review: Fez (PS4/Vita)

Fez features the ever lovable Gomez who lives in a peaceful, two-dimensional world. He one day awakens and watches the break-up of a giant, golden Hexahedron which tears the dimensional fabric apart. He quickly receives a red fez hat which provides the revelation that his world has three dimensions.

The story in Fez is minimal but absolutely endearing. It has so much personality without actually saying much.

Fez is one of the most unique games that I have ever played. Its pixel art style is quite unique and really makes you feel apart of a brand new world. It’s extremely minimalist in its design and that really helps the world be the hero of the game. The reminiscent chiptune soundtrack in the game is extremely catchy and makes the game all the more lovable. On the PS4, the game runs at 1080p with a full 60FPS and it looks better than ever.

The Vita iteration is no slouch either, making great use of that vibrant OLED.

Fez is all about rotating a flat, 2D world at 90° rotations to reveal a 3D world. The player can move left or right in order to essentially reveal four sides of a cube. It’s your challenge to interact with ladders and broken plates by switching the world around to complete broken sections of the level. You traverse through the world in the name of collecting cubes.

Gomez can steadily jump between platforms in order to make up the rest of the platforming mechanics. There are no foes or bosses within the game, which will turn some players away, but I felt that this allowed me to enjoy the game and play it at my own pace. It allowed me to be able to enjoy the world to the fullest and really experience the game in the way that I wanted to.

Fez has bought quite a few features onto the PS4 and Vita. On the latter, you can use the touch screen in order to manipulate the world, which works exceptionally well. On the PS4, the light bar is used in order to replicate the colourings of the world. This is a great use of the feature and really makes you immersed within the world, as gimmicky as it sounds. The touchpad on the PS4 can be flicked in order to spin the world, which is quite a helpful feature. The game supports cross-save and cross-buy within all three PlayStation consoles so you’ll only have to buy the game once and be able to continue on any of the three platforms, if that’s your sort of thing.

Review: Fez (PS4/Vita)

Overall, Fez is still the same game that you know and love. It’s definitely not worth buying the game again if you’ve already finished It. However, you’re in luck if it’s your first time seeing the beautiful world of Fez, as there is no better console to experience it on. The world is more vibrant than ever and the exclusive features of the PlayStation console make the game a much more pleasant experience.

Founder and Managing Editor of PressStart. My first console was the NES and I grew a major love for gaming in the PS1 days, playing games such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ape Escape and Medievil.